Sookie Stackhouse
Sookie Stackhouse is the titular character and narrator in The Sookie Stackhouse Novels/The Southern Vampire Mysteries and one of the main characters in HBO's True Blood. Raised by her beloved grandmother, Adele Hale Stackhouse, Sookie is an old fashioned girl in a rapidly-changing world. Until her death when Sookie was 25, Gran was very much the center of Sookie’s world, having taken Sookie and Jason in after their parents were drowned in a flash-flood, and then putting a stop to the systematic abuse Sookie was suffering from her great-uncle Bartlett. Her telepathy manifested when she was still young, and her childhood was colored by learning to deal with it. The psychologists all said she had ADHD and wanted to medicate her, or that was just really good at reading body-language... but that wasn’t it at all. She performed on the lower side of average in school, but when taking tests or doing her homework, her grades were much higher since she wasn’t as distracted by the thoughts of the other kids. Due to her struggles in this regard, she elected not to go to college and had a handful of jobs that she had to quit after reading her bosses’ minds accidentally, until she finally took a waitress position at Merlotte’s Bar & Grill. As a waitress at Merlotte's Bar & Grill, Sookie's learned the deep dark secrets of everyone in Bon Temps. She also learned how to smile sweetly and keep a straight face when all she wants to do is dump a tray of drinks in someone's lap. What was otherwise an uneventful life changed dramatically the night that Bill Compton walked into Merlotte’s; he has shaken Sookie’s world to its core, bringing her into the world of the supernaturals and sharing both his blood and her first real love affair with her over the next several months. Through him, Sookie has gotten to know vampires, werewolves and found a place for herself that makes her disability into a prize of great worth. = What are you? In spite of bad situations and all the horrible, ugly thoughts she hears day in and day out, Sookie is at heart an optimist. She thinks feeling sorry for yourself is lazy and believes strongly in the virtues of keeping a level head and playing the hand you're dealt. She has a big heart and a large capacity for love and compassion. Growing up markedly different in a small town, she has very little in the way of prejudice against anyone who is 'different', and real empathy for the underdog. Romantically, Sookie is drawn to dominant, alpha-male men, usually supernatural in nature. Vampires and other 'supes' as she calls them are much harder to read than human beings, and thus her telepathy is muffled around them and that allows her to relax in their company. She takes great pride in her home and loves the simple pleasures in life -- a good book, sunbathing, dancing, expanding her vocabulary with a Word of The Day calendar. Her 'gift' made it hard to make and retain friends, especially growing up, but those she cares about, she cares fiercely for. She does love Bill Compton deeply, but there is a part of her that is increasingly and magnetically drawn to Eric Northman. Lack of experience makes her naive in matters of the heart, but it is almost always her intention to be a good girl. Sookie strives, in all things, to live up to the code of good, Christian, lady-like Southern manners that her Gran raised her to value. However, her telepathy and the situations she all-too-frequently finds herself in act as a counter to that resolve. And once in a while, her temper gets the best of her. She is a bright and resourceful woman, and is learning to become a survivor. I'm a waitress Sookie will tell you, at length and in very exasperated tones, that she is not psychic. That is, she can't see the future. What she is, is a telepath. She can hear the thoughts of any human characters quite clearly most of the time. In fact, she has to concentrate not to hear someone. Most people's thoughts are not formed in complete sentences, but rather in minimal words and images, and physical and eye contact make an individual's mind easier to read. Furthermore, her telepathy means she's immune to any form of mind-control or any attempts to influence her psychically. Her ability to hear Supernaturals' thoughts varies from species to species. Vampires are silent to her, on account of them being dead, she thinks. Shape-shifters/werewolves, etc., are not as clear as humans, and she gets flashes of their animal natures in their thoughts, but sometimes, she can hear them clearly, too. Any other species, we'd have to work out on a case-by-case basis. The telepathy's as much of a curse as it is a blessing -- the noise and bustle of so many minds pressing against her own can stress Sookie out a lot, and she will, when under pressure, answer comments only 'voiced' in someone's mind. This gave her a reputation of being crazy back home in Bon Temps, or, as noted earlier, psychic. Recently on the show, too, we've seen Sookie flash pink electricity from her fingertips when she is in direst danger. It's entirely involuntary so far, and harkens to the fact that in book canon, she has a fairy grandfather and is therefore 1/4 fairy herself. Sookie, however, at this point in her canon has no idea about this. Category:Characters